Trump distances himself from Roger Stone but calls his arrest 'very sad' for the country

President Donald Trump downplayed his connections Roger Stone in an interview with the New York Times published Thursday, but called Stone's January 25 arrest "very sad for the country."

Stone was indicted on five counts of making false statements to investigators, one count of obstruction of justice, and one count of witness tampering in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

The charges stem from Stone lying about his communications with Randy Credico and Jerome Corsi, people he says served as intermediaries between him and radical pro-transparency group Wikileaks.

Stone was indicted on five counts of making false statements to investigators, one count of obstruction of justice, and one count of witness tampering in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

Stone, who has known and worked with Trump on-and-off for nearly 40 years, briefly served as a communications strategist on the Trump campaign from June to around August of 2015. While Trump says he fired him, Stone maintains he quit over Trump's feud with then-Fox News host Megyn Kelly.

As part of the investigation, Mueller is examining whether any Trump associates had advance knowledge that Russian hackers had breached the servers of the Democratic National Committee and stolen batches of emails belonging to the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

The emails were disseminated by the radical pro-transparency group WikiLeaks, and the leaks — some of which came just weeks before the 2016 election — are widely seen as one of the factors that contributed to Clinton's loss.

Stone sent out several tweets in the summer of 2016, long after officially leaving the Trump campaign, that raised questions about whether he had prior knowledge about WikiLeaks' plans to publish the hacked emails.

In the Times interview, Trump denied having ever discussed the Wikileaks document dumps with Stone or directing him to speak with either alleged intermediary about the Clinton emails. He also repeated his praise of Stone's stated refusal to testify or "bear false witness" against him.

"You know he's said it numerous times, but I heard him say it one time he's done a great job, he's a great president, and I will not, you know, lie in order to — people respect that so much. They respect that," he said of Stone's comments.